Page 36

II

Alice plunges out into the harsh light.

She flinches as she puts the stolen sunglasses on, shielding her eyes, resisting the urge to beeline back toward the Yard and the dorm and the safety of the curtained dark, only because it will not solve the clawing problem of her current hunger—thirst?

She doesn’t know which to call it (because it feels like both).

Her mouth is dry, and her stomach is empty, and her whole body feels like it’s ringing like an empty chamber.

A glass, waiting to be filled.

She could keep pretending that maybe there’s a food or drink that will ease the hollow feeling, but so far, only one thing seems to help—one point in the column of common lore that might as well rig the rest of the game, because it’s the one that matters most.

Alice needs blood.

The thought alone is enough to make her throat go dry, and she’s suddenly aware of how many students are drifting up and down the path she’s on, their heartbeats heavy in her head—but last night was a mistake, one she just nearly made again with Hannah, and this is her new life. She’s not about to ruin it.

So Alice turns, and heads off campus.

She puts as much distance as she can between herself and the storied buildings and the tree-lined streets and the faces she is just starting to know well enough to recognize. And to be recognized.

She walks, hugging the shadowed side of the road until she reaches the river, and then keeps going, along the tree-lined banks, walks until with every single stride, she can feel the strain spreading through her body, her ligaments tight, her bones stiff, tries to think of where to go, a movie theater, maybe, somewhere dark, if not exactly private; it’s not perfect, but right now nothing is.

Alice sinks onto a bench in the shade, puts her head in her hands.

Maybe if she knew what—or who—she’s looking for.

She remembers a popular serial killer show about a guy (it’s always a guy) who targeted bad people, found a moral way to feed the urge to hurt, to kill, and as Alice gets back to her feet, she tries to figure out what makes a person bad enough to deserve that kind of thing.

And then she passes a construction site, and hears the rise and fall of a whistle pointed her way.

Sees three men, perched round the wheels of a machine, one with his fingers still in his mouth, and for once instead of making herself smaller, hunching in, hurrying on, Alice slows and straightens, turns to meets their gaze.

She doesn’t smile, doesn’t say anything, just stares, and they must see something there, because they draw back, duck their heads and shrink away, and it feels good, or it would if she weren’t so fucking hungry.

If there were one of them instead of three.

But it gives her an idea.

Alice looks down at herself, in her T-shirt and black jeans, her high-top sneakers, wishing she’d picked something more suggestive, even though she knows it doesn’t really matter.

That the simple act of having a teenage body, no matter how it’s dressed, has always been enough to justify a man’s attention.

She tugs her hair out of its ponytail and slows her stride, unpicks a decade’s worth of warnings as she lowers her guard, thinks Look at me, see me, want me.

Part of her feels like a fool, but the rest is too hungry to care.

She walks to the end of the block, then lingers, fingers looped in the straps of her backpack.

The sun slips behind a cloud, and she shivers in relief.

She turns and starts back down the same stretch of road.

And halfway down the block, she sees him.

Feels him, really. A middle-aged guy in a decent suit, rolling a set of car keys round his index finger as he ambles toward a sleek sedan.

And here’s the thing—Alice probably wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn’t been looking at her first. Staring, really, that way some men do, as if looking is fair game, because in their minds, all girls are just asking to be looked at.

So yeah, he’s staring at her, with a canted head and a crooked smile, eyes tracking in a way that makes her stomach twist, that old familiar fear welling up, the warning pressed into every inch of a girl’s skin until it lives there.

She forces herself to smile back, tucks the borrowed shades up in her hair (even though the light is brutal) and bites her bottom lip just a little as she walks over to him.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Flirting with other girls is a long game, a drawn-out con of longing, and guessing, toeing the edge of a pool before finally, sometimes, in a moment of weakness or exasperation, flinging yourself in.

But Catty always said that guys were easier.

Just let them think they’re in control.

There’s a moment, as Alice gets right next to him, when she’s worried that he’ll look at her and see what those construction workers did. That he’ll pull back, hurry away. But the only thing rolling off this man is confidence.

He is so sure which of them is predator, and which is prey.

“Yes, honey?” he says, and all the old parts of Alice say No, say Wrong, say Get away, but the new part says, “Think you could give me a ride?”

The air around him tastes like sugar burning, and she makes a mental note, that acrid scent seems to go with arrogance, and appetite.

“Sure thing,” he says as his gaze wanders up and down, slow as brushstrokes. “Where to?”

Alice swallows, feels her old self welling up, like sabotage, but she bites the inside of her cheek until it bleeds, and reminds her what she wants. What she needs.

“Well,” she says, trying to make her voice soft, a secret in the space between them.

“Where can you take me?” And even as the words leave her lips, she has to fight the urge to roll her eyes, because this will never work, she should have made another go at compulsion instead—but his smile just splits into a grin, as if God has handed him a treat. As if it’s all too easy.

“Hop in,” he says, holding the car door open for her, and as she slides onto the leather seat, the door swings closed, the steel shell and tinted glass blocking out the worst of the sunlight. Her head clears and her vision steadies, and for a moment Alice sighs in pure relief.

Then the man gets in, and the car starts, and the locks click, and she stiffens, fingers twitching toward the door on instinct, and Alice has to remind herself, over and over, that it’s going to be okay. That she doesn’t need to be afraid, because nothing bad is going to happen.

At least, not to her.

She leans back into the leather as the engine growls, and the car pulls into traffic, and the man’s hand finds her knee, and she tells herself to go somewhere else.

And she does.

Piece by piece—

Until the car is gone—

And the man is gone—

And his hand is gone, and—

She is flying on her bicycle, pebbles crunching beneath the tires.

Up ahead, Catty’s hair sways as she runs, gold hair hacked short to the shoulders with a pair of kitchen shears, the ends dyed stoplight red.

She’s fourteen now, and fast, a runner on the school’s track team—the only sport she was keen to play, because it didn’t involve any teamwork or chat—but that’s not why she’s running now.

Alice pedals faster, trying to close the gap.

She’s eleven, a head shorter than Catty and still waiting for that spurt of growth everyone keeps promising, the one that will unfold her into something more, but it hasn’t shown up yet, so when her sister took off, she had the sense to grab her bike, the only way to catch up now.

And she has to catch up.

Because for once, Catty is running from her.

She’s not heading up the hill behind their house, but down the road out of town. Away. Away. And it’s Alice’s fault.

Even though it’s not, not entirely, some of it has to fall on Dad, and El—

(El, who Catty still insists on calling Eloise, even though it’s been three years, Eloise, as if she’s a visitor, an unwelcome guest, or worse, an intruder, an imposter, a usurper, a gas leak, a slow poison.)

—but Alice is the one who smiled, and threw her arms around El’s shoulders when she heard the news that she was pregnant.

Alice is the one who made the mistake of saying Congrats and That’s wonderful and then made the unforgivable error of adding the word Mum to the end, and even though it felt right she knew it was a mistake, as soon as it was out, tried to suck the word back behind her teeth, but it was too late, Catty flinched back as if struck, and took off.

Alice catches up on the bike, slows to pace Catty, says “Please,” says, “I didn’t mean it,” but her sister only speeds up, trainers pounding and blue eyes red from winter cold and rage.

(Catty only ever cries when she is angry.)

“Go home, Bones,” she snaps, and that word— home —comes out sharp enough to hurt. Alice flinches.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she is, and she isn’t, and it’s all a mess in her head. Because Eloise is a kind of mum, the only one she remembers, the one who leaves notes in her pockets and packs her lunch and holds her when she’s sad, or sick, or scared.

And Catty is the one who leaves.

Who runs.

They reach the edge of town and Catty keeps going, Alice trailing in her wake, till Hoxburn is behind them, out of sight, and Alice is just starting to worry that her sister won’t stop, when something inside Catty finally seems to break.

She draws up short, sinks into a crouch, and digs her hands into her hair—

And screams.

A banshee wail that rolls through the hills, snagging on the gorse and moss. A violent, visceral sound that would have brought neighbors spilling from their homes if they were still in town. If this weren’t the kind of countryside that dampens everything.